Author & Futurist

The truth about secrets

Secrets kills us. They eat at our souls and disrupt our emotions in a negative way. We very rarely feel good about secrets because by nature we are social creatures that rely and need each other to survive. Collaboration is what put us atop of the food chain and that means we must share. I’m certain the feeling we often get when we hold secrets is our genetic code telling us that secrets are not cool and generally don’t lead to ideal outcomes.

So it got me thinking about the nature of secrets and the different types of them.

There are many types of secrets, but these 2 are interesting:

Secrets that hide things we have done for fear of judgement or persecution.

Secrets that hide things which are ideas we want to benefit from at the exclusion of others.

These are 2 types of secrets we should avoid.

The first one should be avoided because we shouldn’t do anything dodgy, and we shouldn’t be ashamed of anything that is out of our control.

The second is counter intuitive. Our emotional need to share secrets is our DNA telling us it will create more for everyone. A shared idea can often be improved, a shared idea creates a team to build it, a shared idea increases access to resources, a shared idea creates a market place and a bigger pie for all. Stealing ideas is not the same as stealing chestnuts. If we exchange ideas, we both end up with more ideas than we started with.

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2 Comments →The truth about secrets

I personally go by the philosophy of being generous and always sharing. This matches with your second point of sharing ‘secrets’. I’ve found the more I talk about ideas, the more connections, ideas and progress I make.

If you have a great idea and someone else thinks the same thing. If they have a connection with you, they’ll want to discuss it further and help make it happen.

Thanks Michael. It’s funny for the longest time I kept secrets thinking it was the path to success…. it wasn’t until I read the Clue Train Manifesto that I changed mind mind…. Life has been better since I became a sharer!
Steve.